Next month, I will attend graduate classes at the labor Center of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. On a personal level, I have always wanted to resume graduate-level classes towards a Master’s degree and eventually a Doctorate. But it’s not just about me; I want to learn as much as possible to help the Labor movement, to which I am dedicated. I will learn more about the various labor struggle going on in this country in its history and more contemporary issues Labor deals with.

Two things bother me: how education, the pathway to personal empowerment and fulfillment, and the means a society sustains itself, is treated like a luxury, you have to shell out thousands of dollars to pay for classes, and so you have to apply for student loans; and when you graduate, you have to pay off the loans and that is a huge chunk out of whatever paycheck you get. wealthier students, on the other hand, go to college and may not work so hard in their classes-why should they, they’re going to inherit the world, so why wrack your brains?

Also, Labor has been treated in the corporate media and our equally corporate politics as some sinister alien force, separate from the rest of the populations; but the evil “Labor” is comprised of working men and women, your neighbors, the people you go to services with, the people who buy from local small businesses. I’m doing my own part to fight that, and with the knowledge I attain, I can do that.